Why Cheating In School Is Moral

Aiding a helpless victim of unreasonable conditions

Why Cheating in School is Moral Healthy Living Magazine

You have been kidnapped and dragged off
to a remote location where your abductors
have tied you to a chair. One of your captors
is seated in front of you. He holds up 10
flash cards and informs you that he is going
to ask you a series of questions and the
answers are printed on the backs of the cards. He assures
you that once he has finished asking these questions, you
will be released. There is a catch, though.

For every question
you get wrong, he will signal his accomplice to cut off one
of your fingers. As he begins to read the first question, you
notice there is a mirror on the opposite wall where you
can see the reflection of the text on the card. Because you
have been taught that cheating is dishonest, you interrupt
your kidnapper and let him know that you are able to read
the card and that he must conceal them better so that you
cannot inadvertently cheat. He adjusts himself accordingly
and proceeds to ask you a series of dry and uninspired
questions on topics that hold no interest for you while his
accomplice menacingly holds out a set of cutting pliers.

While cheating is technically wrong, everyone should
cringe at this conception of morality because it fails to
account for context. In this example, cheating is not only
justified, it is necessary because it aids a helpless victim who
has been involuntarily subjected to unreasonable conditions.
Unfortunately, this kind of clarity is absent when it comes to
compulsory education.

One of the most salient features of all public schools is
the importance of grades. Because grades are the currency
and sole commodity of schools, they are used both to
motivate and punish. They are a major component of a
student’s portfolio and have the potential to impact their
future. Educators might try to stress the value of “learning”
over grades, but that is a complete farce. When learning is
not commensurately represented by grades, students rightly
feel cheated by the system and become apathetic. To insist
on valuing learning over grades is offensively disingenuous
and hypocritical. It is akin to telling workers at McDonald’s
that they should care more about doing their job than their
salary.

Students have no input regarding how or what they learn,
and they are alienated from the work they do at school.
Except for a few rare assignments, students are not inspired
by their work, and any personal attachment they could have
is undermined by the fact that they must compromise their
efforts to meet the demands and expectations of the person
who grades their work.

It’s important to bear in mind that students prepare for
tests with the intention that they will retain the material just
long enough to take the test and then forget most of what
they learned soon afterwards. This completely undermines
the purpose and value of testing. Advocates of testing
who denigrate cheating conveniently fail to acknowledge
this. Testing demands that students view knowledge as a
disposable commodity that is only relevant when it is tested.
This contributes to the process of devaluing education.

The benefits of cheating are obvious–improved grades
in an environment where failure is not an opportunity for
learning, but rather a badge of shame. When students do
poorly on a test, there is no reason for them to review their
responses because they will likely never be tested on the
same thing again. The test itself is largely arbitrary and often
not meaningful. Organizations such as FairTest are devoted
to sharing research that exposes the problems of bad testing
practices.

The main arguments against cheating in school are
that it is unethical, promotes bad habits and impacts selfesteem
through the attainment of an unearned reward.
None of these concerns are even remotely valid because
none consider the environment. Children are routinely
rounded up and forcibly placed in an institution where they
are subjected to a hierarchy that places them at the bottom.

Like the hostage, they are held captive even if they are not
physically bound. They are deprived of any power over their
lives, including the ability to pursue their interests, and are
subjected to a barrage of tests that have consequences for
each wrong answer.

Maintaining ethics is part of an unwritten contract of
being a willing participant in a community. Students who are
placed in school against their will and routinely disrespected
have no obligation to adhere to the ethical codes of their
oppressors. Cheating is an act of resistance, and resistance
against oppressive powers should be encouraged and
celebrated, rather than deemed a “bad habit” or an unethical
act. The concern regarding self-esteem is highlighted by The
Child Study Center as promoting the “worst damage,” lacks
any scientific support whatsoever.

If students feel bad for cheating, it is because the
environment has created a set of conditions where cheating
is necessary and justifiable. For this same reason, many
students are proud that they cheat. Cheating often requires
creativity in terms of execution as well as ingenuity to avoid
being caught. It also serves as a statement of disdain against
an arbitrary and repressive institution. For these reasons,
cheating can be a source for pride that boosts self-esteem.
Given this construct, cheating is not simply something many
students do; it is something all students in compulsory
schools should do. Cheating seems to be a moral imperative.

Punishing students for cheating is completely
misguided. People should be most concerned about the
student who does not cheat. They are the ones who appear
to have internalized their oppression and might lack the
necessary skills to rally and lobby against abuses of power
that are perpetrated by governing bodies. Cheating should
be recognized as the necessary and logical outcome of an
arbitrary and oppressive institution. Punishing students
who cheat is yet another abuse of autocratic power. In a
healthy society, people would ridicule and shame those
who force children to endure the kind of environment that
demands they must cheat.

Cevin Soling directed The War on Kids, the first theatrically released documentary
on education. He is a graduate of the Harvard Graduate School of
Education and lectures on education issues and other subjects. Soling’s films
have appeared on the BBC, HBO, Showtime, The Sundance Channel, MTV, The
Learning Channel and other outlets. His media appearances include being a
featured guest on “The Colbert Report.”

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